But exactly a year ago, the 37-year-old found herself with a new job in Westminster as part of an exclusive band of 257 Labour Party MPs. She is only the second woman to have represented Hull as an MP.

'I miss my daughters when I'm away'

Hull West and Hessle MP Emma Hardy makes her election victory speech at the Guildhall on June 8, 2017

“So at the weekend if I am doing things in the constituency then I like to go to things I can take my children to as well so they are part of it.”

Emma Hardy pictured unveiling sculptures in the Sensory Garden in Pickering Park, west Hull. She tries to ensure her children can come with her to weekend events (Image: Peter Harbour)

Next Friday, June 15, that will involve taking the pair to Hull mosque to mark the end of Ramadan. The visit follows a “really interesting” trip to the Sikh temple in Parkfield Drive a few weeks ago which Ms Hardy says proved popular with her daughters who enjoy learning about different cultures.

'I've broken my rule and let my 9-year-old have a mobile phone'

Not all aspects of mum’s political life has appealed to the two sisters, however.

“They don’t mind leafleting because they can both bring their scooters and as I leaflet they scooter up and down. So if we go leafleting, we also have to take scooters or roller blades with us,” the ex-Hessle town councillor says.

“But they don’t like door knocking because that means they have to stop and they can’t continue scooting down the street!

“When we do street stalls, that’s okay because that’s near the fountains [in Queen Victoria Square]. So we take a change of clothes and a towel and they play in the fountains while I do the street stall, so that one’s okay.”

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Ms Hardy says she has “had to break my rule” and allow Olivia, who turns 10 next week, to have a mobile phone so she can keep in closer contact with her mother when she is in London.

Some “emotional blackmail” might have also been deployed by her eldest, jokes the city MP.

“I was determined she wasn’t going to have a phone until she was much older but we decided that, while I was away, she could have one so I could FaceTime her,” she says.

Hull MPs Diana Johnson and Emma Hardy are the first women to represent the city in Westminster (Image: Jerome Ellerby)

“I can message them and they’ll send me cute messages telling me what they’ve been up to. Isabelle is way too young for a phone but if I time it right before they go to bed then I can speak to them together.”

Despite only being in the job 12 months, the former teacher has made a name for herself in Westminster thanks to her forthright style and prominence on the influential Commons education committee.

Campaign successes

She has provoked many headlines with her no-holds-barred political rebukes, including confronting the schools minister to warn that exams were “breaking” pupils and demanding Treasury ministers “stop faffing about” when it comes to funding a mental health unit for Hull’s children and young adults.

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Her efforts have seen her promoted by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who appointed her to the (unpaid) role of MP aide to the party’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer.

Successes in her first year have included her leadership on exposing the damages of surgical mesh – a national scandal which has left women such as Angie Sykes in Hull in “constant pain” – and local victories such as ensuring the Castle Street road upgrade, which has rocketed to predicted costs of £400m, remains on track.

With mesh, it was a meeting with constituent and former supermarket worker Ms Sykes that inspired the newly-elected MP to challenge ministers, leading a fiery debate in Westminster Hall in January calling for mesh implants to be halted until an inquiry had been carried out into its effects.

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“We have had so much support for the mesh campaign and now we’ve got this public inquiry and we’ve had the audit [into the amount of times mesh has been applied] – we’ve been successful in most of the demands we’ve made,” she says.

“We are still looking at getting it suspended while this [review] is carried out. But it has been a really big campaign so far. If nothing else, doctors are voting with their feet and they are stopping use it.

“The use of it has declined remarkably partly because of the publicity it has had.”

'Alan Johnson didn't once mention the word "vagina" when he was MP'

Alan Johnson was MP for Hull West and Hessle MP between 1997-2017

When Ms Hardy first arrived in Parliament, she grew used to hearing the traditional refrain, ‘So you’re the new Alan Johnson!”, so universally known was her predecessor after his 20 years in office.

While she is “proud” to be the former home secretary’s successor, Ms Hardy says references to Mr Johnson has largely stopped mainly due to setting herself apart with her own campaigns.

Local Labour activists joke that her surgical mesh campaign has certainly been new territory for a Hull West and Hessle politician.

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“My local party branch did comment that in the 20 years Alan Johnson was MP, he didn’t once mention the word ‘vagina’ – but I seem to mention it every month! At our meetings, I’m like: ‘Let me give you a mesh update’,” she says, laughing.

Some issues have been around for so long, they cannot help but overlap the two MPs’ tenures.

The battle to see the A63 through Hull ridded of its traffic problems has been decades long.

Ensuring the Castle Street upgrade goes ahead has been one of Emma Hardy MP's priorities since being elected

“The danger and the risk to life to people using that crossing – it is awful. That will be something concrete that I have seen done.”

'No shrinking violet'

Emma Hardy MP is known for her forthright style in the House of Commons

Ms Hardy’s ability to get her own way might have something to do with her unflinching style.

For a newbie, she has not been afraid to issue takedowns to any minister, company or organisation she sees as standing in Hull’s way or feels are treating constituents unfairly.

In a speech in the Commons, she branded it “disgusting” that recycling outfit FCC Environment was not paying its Hull workers sick pay and told Cabinet minister Chris Grayling he had issued a “huge insult” to Hull by refusing to hold talks with her about Castle Street.

“I think that’s just me”, replies Ms Hardy. “That’s just the way I am. I think you can’t pretend to be someone you are not. You just have to be the person you are.

“I like to think I’m quite a polite person but I’m also northern and quite clear about what I want and what I think should happen. No one elected me to be a shrinking violet.”